Headlines

Matt Bruenig

The case for killing law school

The big scandal in all of this is not that law students are somehow getting a raw deal because of the debt they undertake in their arduous path through the credential gate. It’s that the whole system wastes a ton of money that could be spent on more useful things than lining the pockets of lawyers and law professors.

By making it easier to become a lawyer, we could undermine this malicious dynamic. Make law schools two years instead of three. Or better yet: Get rid of law schools altogether and make law an undergraduate degree. Eliminate the bar exam or, if you’d like, make passage of it the only requirement to practice law and get rid of all the rest of the qualifications. One way or another, we should do what it takes to flood the market with legal credentials and drag lawyers down into the pits or financial normality with the rest of the middle class.

This sounds extreme, but it’s actually what almost every other profession is like. And they seem to work just fine. Why must lawyers be special? Do they really need more training than professionals in countless other professions? Having just gone through this training myself, I am skeptical, to say the least.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Trackbacks/Pings

Comments

I have another (or, perhaps, additional) idea. I received my law license almost a year ago (May 2013). Upon reflecting on my time in law school, and after reading a few things, I’ve come to the conclusion that they should bring back the practice of reading law at law offices as an alternative to classroom education.

If you read the author’s bio at the end of the article, you will see he is a typical Marxist tool, writing about “poverty, inequality, and economic justice” for several publications. Just goes to show you how little stock to put into his thoughts.Most importantly, though, he apparently is not a lawyer. So even if he weren’t a political moron, he pretty much has no clue what he’s talking about.

As a recent (2011) law school grad, I can tell you that the problem is the government guaranteeing loans for virtually anyone with a pulse. It has created a glut of students, many of whom are stupid enough to believe a law degree is a license to print money (as the author does). It has also resulted in absurd salaries for law professors.

Most anyone can crawl through law school, as Joe “Ds get Degrees” Biden will tell you. The bar exam is a test of minimal competency, and you can oftentimes take it as many times as you want until you eek out a passing score; just ask Beau Biden.

The problem isn’t law school. It’s providing idiots with the wherewithal to go to law school, somehow pass the bar, and go on to degrade the profession.

One way or another, we should do what it takes to flood the market with legal credentials and drag lawyers down into the pits or financial normality with the rest of the middle class.

The better lawyers will still charge more. Flooding the profession might raise access to legal services to those with more modest means, but it wouldn’t prevent those at the top paying what they pay for better quality.

YET, when your attorney gets disbarred, they don’t step up and assist the people who were clients of their association’s member.

Yeah…what a racket. All for the lawyer’s union, but nothing for the clients of those they represent.

ProfShadow on April 22, 2014 at 7:05 AM

At least in some states, all admitted attorneys pay into special funds for the benefit of individuals who are the victims of legal malpractice. Thus, the bar does shoulder at least a portion of the burden. For example: http://www.nylawfund.org/who.html

The problem isn’t law school. It’s providing idiots with the wherewithal to go to law school, somehow pass the bar, and go on to degrade the profession.

Ted the Average on April 22, 2014 at 6:25 AM

I think this is a problem with a lot of professions.
Even down to being certified as a mechanic, like a diesel mechanic.
My husband has had only a 2 week vet course when he left HS. He is a rancher. That’s it. His whole life now (he’s almost 47).
And yet, he has had to diagnose & guide certified diesel mechanics to fix several of our vehicles.
He overhauled our tractor engine himself bcs the last tractor a certified diesel mechanic ‘fixed’ was inoperable.
I have found these sorts of things to be true in Drs, RNs,PAs, lawyers, and teachers.
In the end, if excellence is not held up in a profession, it will be degraded to incompetence. Which many professions have suffered bcs those making the decision to graduate, license, & promote onward are incompetent &/or corrupt.
Being human, this will never end.
But it is certainly worse now bcs we expect less of our youth & make excuses for them & coddle them & they are not made to deal with failure.
I tell my students don’t believe it when someone says you can do & be anything you want.
Bcs it isn’t true.
Decide what it is you CAN do & do WELL & strive for that, whether it’s staying home to farm or ranch or become an engineer or Dr or even POTUS.
But not everyone is cut out to do anything.

Make law schools two years instead of three. Or better yet: Get rid of law schools altogether and make law an undergraduate degree. Eliminate the bar exam or, if you’d like, make passage of it the only requirement to practice law and get rid of all the rest of the qualifications.

Ideas with merit, but there are other rackets to consider, like the LSAT industry, a rent-seeking cottage industry/middleman that exists to make money off of law school hopefuls BEFORE they even enter law school. And what purpose does it serve? I’ve seen plenty of kids pass the LSAT who aren’t law school material. Hell, I’ve seen numerous people graduate law school without having been taught to, as so many law school professors insist law school is necessary for, “think like a lawyer.” Hell, Congress is prima facie evidence of the latter. So what does that say about the LSAT?

Then there’s the matter of so many elderly lawyers who are seen as leading figures in their communities who refuse to retire, and if they were in any other business, they would’ve been forcibly retired decades prior. So now we have two decades’ worth of lawyers who should’ve retired and made way for newer and younger entrants, but law is a field that (understandably so), values experience over pretty much anything else. Just as valuable are the courtroom connections that years of familiarity with other lawyers and legal employees tends to foster, which older lawyers have in spades and younger lawyers don’t have at all. Still, this makes the vast majority of even the most talented portions of many classes of law school graduates effectively unemployable in too many areas of law; there are just too many people practicing law. This isn’t really the fault of old veteran lawyers who don’t want to quit, though, but law schools have, for years, been selling something that they can’t provide, and the gullible have suffered.

I would’ve started law school during the previous fall semester at my law school of choice, but as more and more evidence of the legal/law school bubble popping began to surface and eventually pile up, I decided to abandon that dream. Finance is looking pretty damn good right now, I’d say, and my G.I. Bill will cover that.